CALLED TO THE SENATE.
I have called this biography “From Farm-boy to Senator,” because it is
as a senator that Daniel Webster especially distinguished himself. At
different times he filled the position of Secretary of State, but it
was in the Senate Chamber, where he was associated with other great
leaders, in especial Clay, Calhoun and Hayne, that he became a great
central object of attention and admiration.
Mr. Webster was not elected to the Senate till he had reached the age
of forty-five. For him it was a late preferment, and when it came he
accepted it reluctantly. Mr. Clay was not yet thirty when he entered
the Senate, and Mr. Calhoun was Vice-President before he attained the
age of forty-five. But there was this advantage in Mr. Webster’s case,
that when he joined the highest legislative body in the United States
he joined it as a giant, fully armed and equipped not only by nature
but by long experience in the lower House of Congress, where he was a
leader.
The preferment came to him unsought. Mr. Mills, one of the senators
from Massachusetts, who had filled his position acceptably, was
drawing near the close of his term, and his failing health rendered
his re-election impolitic. Naturally Mr. Webster was thought of as his
successor, but he felt that he could hardly be spared from the lower
House, where he was the leading supporter of the administration of John
Quincy Adams. Levi Lincoln was at that time Governor of Massachusetts,
and he too had been urged to become a candidate. Mr. Webster wrote him
an urgent letter, in the hope of persuading him to favor this step.
From that letter I quote:
“I take it for granted that Mr. E. H. Mills will be no longer a
candidate. The question then will be, Who is to succeed him? I need not
say to you that you yourself will doubtless be a prominent object of
consideration in relation to the vacant place, and the purpose of this
communication requires me also to acknowledge that I deem it possible
that my name also should be mentioned, more or less generally, as one
who may be thought of, among others, for the same situation.... There
are many strong personal reasons, and, as friends think, and as I think
too, some _public_ reasons why I should decline the offer of a seat in
the Senate if it should be made to me. Without entering at present
into a detail of those reasons, I will say that the latter class of
them grow out of the public station which I at present fill, and out
of the necessity of increasing rather than of diminishing, in both
branches of the National Legislature, the strength that may be reckoned
on as friendly to the present administration.... To come, therefore, to
the main point, I beg to say that I see no way in which the public good
can be so well promoted as by _your_ consenting to go into the Senate.
“This is my own clear and decided opinion; it is the opinion, equally
clear and decided, of intelligent and patriotic friends here, and I am
able to add that it is also the decided opinion of all those friends
elsewhere whose judgment in such matters we should naturally regard. I
believe I may say, without violating confidence, that it is the wish,
entertained with some earnestness, of our friends at Washington that
you should consent to be Mr. Mills’s successor.”
No one certainly can doubt the absolute sincerity of these utterances.
It was, and is, unusual for a representative to resist so earnestly
what is considered a high promotion. Mr. Webster was an ambitious man,
but he thought that the interests of the country required him to stay
where he was, and hence his urgency.
But Gov. Lincoln was no less patriotic. In an elaborate reply to Mr.
Webster’s letter, from which I have quoted above, he urges that “the
deficiency of power in the Senate is the weak point in the citadel” of
the administration party. “No individual should be placed there but
who was _now_ in armor for the conflict, who understood the proper
mode of resistance, who personally knew and had measured strength
with the opposition, who was familiar with the political interests
and foreign relations of the country, with the course of policy of
the administration, and who would be prepared at once to meet and
decide upon the charter of measures which should be proposed. This,
I undertake to say, no _novice_ in the national council could do. At
least I would not promise to attempt it. I feel deeply that I could
not do it successfully. There is no affectation of humility in this,
and under such impressions I cannot suffer myself to be thought of in
a manner which may make me responsible for great mischief in defeating
the chance of a better selection.”
I am sure my young readers will agree that this correspondence was
highly honorable to both these eminent gentlemen. It is refreshing
to turn from the self-sufficient and self-seeking politicians of our
own day, most of whom are ready to undertake any responsibilities
however large, without a doubt of their own fitness, to the modesty
and backwardness of these really great men of fifty years since. In
the light of Mr. Webster’s great career we must decide that Gov.
Lincoln was right in deciding that he should be the next senator from
Massachusetts.
At any rate such was the decision arrived at, and in June, 1827, Mr.
Webster was elected senator for a period of six years. In due time
he took his seat. He was no novice, but a man known throughout the
country, and quite the equal in fame of any of his compeers. I suppose
no new senator has ever taken his seat who was already a man of such
wide fame and national importance as Daniel Webster in 1827. Had James
A. Garfield, instead of assuming the Presidency, taken the seat in the
Senate to which he had been elected on the fourth of March, 1881, his
would have been a parallel case.
Of course there was some curiosity as to the opening speech of the
already eminent senator. He soon found a fitting theme. A bill was
introduced for the relief of the surviving officers of the Revolution.
Such a bill was sure to win the active support of the orator who had
delivered the address at Bunker Hill.
Alluding to some objections which had been made to the principle
of pensioning them, Mr. Webster said: “There is, I know, something
repulsive and opprobrious in the name of pension. But God forbid that
I should taunt them with it. With grief, heartfelt grief, do I behold
the necessity which leads these veterans to accept the bounty of their
country in a manner not the most agreeable to their feelings. Worn out
and decrepit, represented before us by those, their former brothers in
arms, who totter along our lobbies or stand leaning on their crutches,
I, for one, would most gladly support such a measure as should consult
at once their services, their years, their necessities and the delicacy
of their sentiments. I would gladly give with promptitude and grace,
with gratitude and delicacy, that which merit has earned and necessity
demands.
“It is objected that the militia have claims upon us; that they
fought at the side of the regular soldiers, and ought to share in the
country’s remembrance. But it is known to be impossible to carry the
measure to such an extent as to embrace the militia, and it is plain,
too, that the cases are different. The bill, as I have already said,
confines itself to those who served, not occasionally, not temporarily,
but permanently; who allowed themselves to be counted on as men who
were to see the contest through, last as long as it might; and who
have made the phrase ‘‘listing for the war’ a proverbial expression,
signifying unalterable devotion to our cause, through good fortune and
ill fortune, till it reached its close.
“This is a plain distinction; and although, perhaps, I might wish to do
more, I see good ground to stop here for the present, if we must stop
anywhere. The militia who fought at Concord, at Lexington and at Bunker
Hill, have been alluded to in the course of this debate in terms of
well-deserved praise. Be assured, sir, there could with difficulty be
found a man, who drew his sword or carried his musket at Concord, at
Lexington or at Bunker Hill, who would wish you to reject this bill.
They might ask you to do more, but never to refrain from doing this.
Would to God they were assembled here, and had the fate of this bill
in their own hands! Would to God the question of its passage were to
be put to them! They would affirm it with a unity of acclamation that
would rend the roof of the Capitol!”
This is so much in Mr. Webster’s style that, had I quoted it without
stating that it was his, I think many of my young readers would have
been able to guess the authorship.